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Part I, The Girl in the River—Entering a New World

Summary: Part I, The Girl in the River

Edward recalls seeing a girl bathing in the Blue River. As he watches, he sees a snake headed toward her. Edward dives in, grabs the snake, and wraps it in his shirt. The girl thanks him for saving her life and names the place Edward’s Grove. Edward turns away while she gets dressed. When he turns back, she is gone. When Edward throws the snake into the water, it turns into a stick. 

Summary: Part I, His Quiet Charm

People say Edward holds a special attraction for young women, especially for making them laugh. Despite being described as shy, Edward exudes charm and thoughtfulness, and young ladies are drawn to his personality. Edward tells jokes that keep people laughing. 

Summary: Part I, How He Tamed the Giant

This chapter tells the story of Karl the Giant who eats and outgrows so much that his mother leaves him in frustration. In Ashland, Karl ravages fields, orchards, and even pet dogs. Edward visits Karl’s cave and offers himself in sacrifice, a proposition that touches Karl’s heart. The giant cries and confesses he doesn’t want to hurt anyone or anything. Karl simply misses his mother’s cooking and is always hungry. Edward offers to teach Karl to farm and cook, and Karl becomes a farmer. 

Summary: Part I, In Which He Goes Fishing

Part of Ashland is flooded and sits under Big Lake, home to enormous catfish. Edward catches a huge fish that pulls him out of his boat and into the lake. There, he sees people who died in the flood and he waves to one of them. The fish throws Edward onto the shore. Knowing no one would believe how he lost his boat and fishing pole, Edward keeps his experience to himself.  

Summary: Part I, The Day He Left Ashland

As a young man, Edward leaves home. Like others, he must pass through “the place that has no name”: a dark, damp, mysterious town whose residents have each endured something terrible, including a man with one arm, a prostitute, a person with hydrocephaly, and an old man named Willie who has lost three fingers. Willie shows Edward around town. Edward meets Norther Winslow, a poet who left Ashland for Paris. People get stuck here in the residue of their dreams. A black dog growls at Edward and then licks his hand. Willie takes Edward to the Good Food Café, where Edward notices that many people are missing fingers. Ghostly people whom Edward recognizes gather around him. They beg him to stay, but he cannot. When the black dog growls, Edward runs away, but the dog follows him to a lake. The dog curls up with Edward at sunset. Later, Edward sees the mysterious river girl bathing in the lake, and he says both hello and goodbye. 

Summary: Part I, Entering a New World 

This chapter is told by Jasper Barron, the man who takes over Bloom Inc. after Edward retires. Jasper recalls seeing Edward at seventeen, a handsome boy with nothing but dreams. 

One day, after walking thirty miles, Edward is robbed and beaten by two thugs. Bleeding, Edward reaches a store where he meets an old man, his wife, and his daughter. Despite his injuries, Edward cleans the store’s floor, leaving a trail of his blood until he collapses. He utters the word “Advertise,” and then recovers. Edward helps make Ben Jimson’s Country Store successful, stays for a year, and then moves on and becomes a successful businessman himself.  

Analysis: The Girl in the River—Entering a New World

A pattern related to time and content will be repeated among the stories of the novel. Some very short chapters illuminate a particular quality of Edward’s, such as his gifts with animals or young women, and include realistic stories from his past. Other chapters describe a memory of Edward’s, such as “The Day He Left Ashland.” Still others are narrated by someone who knew Edward, such as “Entering a New World,” which is told by Jasper Barron. Throughout the novel, there are four “takes” on Edward’s death, each observed by his son, Will. The takes feel as if they are told in the present as Edward is dying. What appeared initially as one narrative now appears to be several different kinds, woven in a predictable pattern into one. 

If Big Fish is a biography, Part I concludes the young man part of Edward’s life. At age seventeen, he leaves Ashland and embarks on his first of many adventures, through the ghostly place that has no name, and on to Ben Jimson’s Country Store. Edward’s story is one part reality and two parts imagination, partly his own and partly others’. Part I ends with the observation by Jasper Barron that Edward has done well and refers to his “legendary industriousness,” leaving the door open for more tall tales of this larger-than-life man of stories.

It is not clear if the Siren-like girl in the river who appears at the end of “The Day He Leaves Ashland” is the same girl from the earlier chapter that bears her name, but she will appear once more in the narrative, when Edward’s ship sinks in “He Goes to War.” In these first two cases, this mysterious water-woman represents adventure. Attracted to and fascinated by her body in the first appearance, Edward risks his own life to save hers. In this second meeting, as Edward leaves Ashland, she seems to beckon Edward out into the world as he says goodbye to his old life and hello to his new one. She smiles at him the way Fate smiles at him, representing hope and optimism. 

Jasper locates the narrative in time when he says that “[t]he year was nineteensomething or other” when Edward left home, but Jasper’s vagueness also leaves room for the mythical, dreamlike nature of the story. References to the 20th century support this setting, but many of the events recalled so far seem like part of a fairy tale past. 

Karl the Giant is a wonderful mythical character who, after being offered a moment of compassion and selflessness by Edward, changes from a dangerous monster into a gentle giant. Karl represents Edward’s unsurpassed ability to charm anyone, whether it be a farm animal, a black dog who serves as a town’s gatekeeper, young women who enjoy his sense of humor, a family of storekeepers, or even a social outcast like Karl. Edward’s reputation as a benevolent charmer is reinforced by everyone who encounters him. Karl evokes other literary giants such as the one who lives on the beanstalk, the Cyclops Polyphemus, Goliath, and the ogres of folklore who eat humans. As a result of Edward’s charms, Karl turns into someone more like Roald Dahl’s Big Friendly Giant, who like Karl, lives in a cave, gives up eating people, and catches dreams. Both Odysseus and Hercules fight beasts who live in caves, so Wallace is drawing a comparison to mythology and linking Edward to a hero of mythical proportions.

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